Apartments
Ostia is known as a city where the Roman apartment is documented exceptionally well. Wrong. The vast majority of the people lived in apartments on upper floors, and of these hardly anything has been preserved. Many of these apartments must have been used by well-to-do people, so that they could be quite large, with expensive furnishing. This is borne out by finds from the House of the Millstones, sealed after the building had been destroyed by fire. Many of the finds do not belong to the bakery on the ground floor, but had fallen down from the upper floors. Among these finds are countless objects of glass and bronze, including bronze pieces of revetment of furniture that had a silver inlay, and marble and bronze friezes and statuettes of deities. Remains are also reported of painted ceilings, marble revetment, and of mosaic floors with geometrical patterns and floral motifs. But about this aspect of city life the philosopher Seneca wrote:
I have lodgings right over a bathing establishment. So picture to yourself the assortment of sounds, which are strong enough to make me hate my very powers of hearing! When your strenuous gentleman, for example, is exercising himself by flourishing leaden weights; when he is working hard, or else pretends to be working hard, I can hear him grunt; and whenever he releases his imprisoned breath, I can hear him panting in wheezy and high-pitched tones. Or perhaps I notice some lazy fellow, content with a cheap rubdown, and hear the crack of the pummeling hand on his shoulder, varying in sound according as the hand is laid on flat or hollow. Then, perhaps, a ball-counter comes along, shouting out the score; that is the finishing touch.
Add to this the arresting of an occasional joker or pickpocket, the racket of the man who always likes to hear his own voice in the bathroom, or the enthusiast who plunges into the swimming-tank with unconscionable noise and splashing. Besides all those whose voices, if nothing else, are good, imagine the hair-plucker with his penetrating, shrill voice, – for purposes of advertisement, – continually giving it vent and never holding his tongue except when he is plucking the armpits and making his victim yell instead. Then the cake-seller with his varied cries, the sausageman, the confectioner, and all the vendors of food hawking their wares, each with his own distinctive intonation.Letters to Lucilius, 56; translation Richard M. Gummere.
Staircases are the most eloquent remains of the upper floor apartments.
Photo: Jan Theo Bakker.A small number of rich apartments is documented on the ground floor. These are the so-called medianum-apartments, with rooms grouped around a long, rectangular "room-in-the-middle", which received light on one side from many windows. The inhabitants may typically have been decurions, members of the city council. Most of these apartments were built during the reign of Hadrian. In our area are the oldest examples, from the reign of Trajan, known in Italian as the "Casette Tipo", the Standard Houses. They are situated to the west of the House of Serapis: two pairs on the ground floor, with wooden staircases leading to upper floor units. These are also the simplest among the medianum-apartments, but still they must have been quite expensive. They are set back somewhat from the main street, and each pair is isolated by surrounding minor roads. In each of the apartments a room has been identified that served both as kitchen and latrine.
A room below a staircase, used as kitchen and latrine, in one of the Standard Houses.
Photo: Daniel González Acuña.Sometimes the interior of a building has been subdivided by thin walls, directly after the construction or much later. The resulting lay-out is often difficult to interpret. One such case is the House of Annius, in which two rather irregular units were created. The quality of the paintings that were then applied suggests that these were apartments.
The interior of the House of Annius on a photo from the 1950's.
Photo: ICCD E040929.Another case is building III,I,12-13, to the east of the House of Serapis, the plan of which can be seen below. The building has not been published and is much overgrown. The remains are too low for windows and decoration to have been preserved. The lay-out is reminiscent of that of the medianum-apartments. On the plan four latrines are indicated, suggesting 2 x 2 units, although there are three doors in the long outer walls. It is one of two isolated buildings on an inner square, shielded from the main road by a row of shops. Most likely we are looking at apartments of which the size could easily be adapted.
Plan of building III,I,12-13. From Scavi di Ostia, vol. I.
Building III,I,12-13, seen from the House of Serapis.
Photo: Klaus Heese.
